


all the breath and the dirt

by alongwinter



Series: you're a hammer, sweet firecracker [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Difficult Decisions, Emotionally Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Fluff, Good Peter, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Scott McCall, Mentioned Sheriff Stilinski, Nervous Stiles Stilinski, Scott is a Bad Friend, Slightly - Freeform, Supportive Sheriff Stilinski, it's implied - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 10:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alongwinter/pseuds/alongwinter
Summary: Stiles is tired of pretending, and Peter just wants to make his boy happy, even if that means being the rational one for once.





	all the breath and the dirt

“Is it always going to be like this?” Stiles asked, pulling the straw in and out of the cup, the light grind of the plastics against each other filling the quiet space within the car. Peter reached a hand out, halting Stiles’ own before turning back to the road. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, his voice layered in sarcasm and wit, having not shook the protective defense yet within their hour drive. Beacon Hills always had that affect on him. The closer he got to his family and his mistakes, it layered itself upon him like one would a coat in the snow. Peter needed his attitude to survive.  

Stiles sighed, “I mean, is it always going to be a fight every time we go back? It’s exhausting, and I’m so tired. Just, just tired.” 

Peter paused, hand gripping the steering wheel tighter as the leather creaked under his palms, “Tired of the situation, or of us?” 

Stiles’ rolled his eyes in fond annoyance before he placed his cup in the door’s holder, reaching his hand out between the seats, palm up and waiting. Peter eyed it cautiously, slipping his own in the spaces between his boy’s fingers. It still marveled them at times, how well they just seemed to fit in all the places that mattered, their hands, their torsos, in each other’s hearts, filling all the broken spaces and helping each other mend the holes other’s left behind. 

“You know I don’t mean us,” Stiles said, squeezing his hand, “I wouldn’t give you up for anything, not now. I meant the situation. It’s exhausting, trying to pretend.” 

“So, we stop pretending.” 

“It’s not that easy and you know it.”

Peter shrugged, using his free hand to turn the blinker on, switching lanes before eyeing Stiles quickly, “It could be.”

He laughed breathlessly, “It really, really isn’t.”

“What’s stopping us?” Peter asked, desperation peeking through his mask, “Your father? Sure, he had his doubts in the beginning, but we’ve proven ourselves capable time and time again, darling. He approves, no matter what the other’s say. It doesn’t have to be this hard.” 

His boy sighed, fingers squeezing Peter’s unconsciously, as if his nervousness had a mind of its own, trying to latch onto it’s support network. He squeezed back, a link between them pulsing in love and adoration. It was hard for Stiles, he knew, to balance his lover with his father and his father with his pack, who had all but abandoned each other in the wake of high school graduation. It had been years since then, but the wounds were still seeping, open and festering each time they visited. 

Each return had put Stiles on edge, pushing him closer and closer to a break they weren’t sure they could come back from. With ‘helpful hints’ from the pack about how close they were getting and how dangerous that was, advice from his father about how they should grow, pressures from creatures of the night, and hunters who thought they knew all, they were teetering on a dangerous cliff with no rope. Peter vowed the first time they visited ‘home’ to do whatever it took to make Stiles believe it didn’t have to be like this. So far it was a moot point, but tonight was showing progress. It thawed him that much more. 

Pulling off at a gas stop, Peter put the car into park and turned toward him, still grasping the hand leaning on the console. He reached across, grabbing the other and gripping them tightly, pressing a kiss to each, two for the freckles dotting the grooves of the boy’s knuckles. 

“Listen to me.” He took both of Stiles’ hands, pulling them toward his torso and placing them above his heart. “I will not let them touch you, any of them, if you are tired of pretending. Nothing, darling, nothing, will ruin this for us.”

Stiles looked down, teeth gnawing the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he picked up somewhere along their journey from the parking garage to now. Tapping his fingers one by one against the chest of his lover, he asked, “Can I think about it a bit more?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Peter sighed, leaning across to kiss him deeply, mouths moving in a practiced way, “I’ll always wait for you.”

Stiles watched as he pulled back and unbuckled his seat belt, exiting the car swiftly and moving inside to pay for gas. Thumping his head on the window, he looked upwards towards the fluorescent lights bordering the metal carport above the pumps with the weight of the world on his shoulders. 


End file.
